AT&T to FCC: gaming is not “broadband,” but an added service

The computer/video game industry is peeved at AT&T for suggesting that real- …

The computer gaming industry is not pleased with comments that AT&T filed with the Federal Communications Commission on how to define "broadband," particularly the suggestion that online games should be relegated to the category of "aspirational services." "For Americans who today have no terrestrial broadband service at all," AT&T wrote the FCC, "the pressing concern is not the ability to engage in real-time, two-way gaming, but obtaining meaningful access to the Internet’s resources and to reliable email communications and other basic tools that most of the country has come to expect as a given."

This did not sit well with Kenneth L. Doroshow, Senior Vice President of the Entertainment Software Association. "What AT&T describes as aspirational services are no less important to the future of the Internet than email and web browsing were to the past and are today," he told the Commission on Wednesday.

They're used for employee training and in schools, he noted. "Online video games are a meaningful part of our participative culture. They remove geographic barriers, connecting people from across the country and around the world. They teach cooperation, cultivate leadership skills, and empower users to express their creativity."

AT&T did acknowledge that the capacity to play games should be included in a larger definition of broadband. But at present, the concept "should take the form of a baseline definition of the capabilities needed to support the applications and services Americans must access to participate in the Internet economy—" the company wrote, "to learn, train for jobs, and work online." AT&T's "minimal set of applications" includes the ability to use email, instant messaging, and basic Web surfing. "It also should include the ability to engage in Internet-based education programs, interact with Internet based government services, and participate in online energy, healthcare, and public-safety programs."

But as Doroshow points out, interactive games are already used for employee training and in schools. "Entertaining does not mean trivial," he wrote.

Is gaming "civic"?

So is there a case for seeing two-way gaming as central to a definition of broadband? The cooperation/leadership argument may not be the strongest point, at least not if the implication is that games make gamers more helpful to society. A Pew Internet and American Life study released last September on Teens, Video Games and Civics concluded that almost all teens (97%) play computer, Web, portable, or console games for sure. And over a quarter of these kids play with others connected to the Internet.

But Pew also found that the most common civic behavior teens displayed while playing was helping others learn the game of the moment. Linking the play experience to moral, ethical, or social issues took place much less frequently. "There is little evidence to support the idea that playing video games, in general, is associated with a vibrant civic or political life," the survey concluded.

On the other hand, Pew did notice that teens tended to link gaming to civic issues more often when playing together in the same physical place, rather than when playing alone or with others online. Enjoying games together, they were more likely to look online for information about politics, raise money for charity, or try to persuade someone how to vote in an election.

But if the civic case for including games in a definition of broadband is still uncertain, the argument that they boost demand for the service seems stronger. Pew's latest report says that one out of every four "economic users" of the Internet—folks who go online to look for jobs or keep track of the economy—also go there to relax by watching a video or playing a game. This is especially true for young users (18-29), half of whom reported playing on the 'Net on a regular basis. If speeding up the rate of broadband adoption requires stimulating demand as well as availability, extending gaming capacity to a definition of broadband becomes that much more credible.

What it enables

All this has become part of the broadband definitional debate. And there's a noticeable divide here between the telcos and cable companies on one side, and content providers and users on the other. The latter camp very much wants the FCC to embrace an "application-based approach" to the broadband definition question, as the FCC put it in its request for definitional comments.

Google leads the pack on this issue. "Ultimately what interests us about broadband is not what it is, but what it enables," the search engine giant wrote to the Commission. Broadband should be defined at speeds "that enable full utilization of broadband services and applications." The connections should be "sufficiently robust" enough to let users "receive, generate and interact with voice, data, graphics and video, which will enable users to receive the maximum value of broadband."

Internet2, a non-profit representing enterprise server users, argues in a similar vein. A definition "should encourage the construction of networks that will ensure that such users have access to the applications they need," the group argues. It is critical, contends the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition, that "community anchor institutions" have access to the bandwidth that "enables them to utilize all of the applications the public needs, not just a few of them."

But do we "need" online games? There's a question to keep us busy for eternity.

Matthew Lasar
Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Emailmatthew.lasar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@matthewlasar

As one of the first adopters of broadband in my area, back in the day, I can honestly say that gaming was my only real motivator for doing so. I don't do much online gaming any more, so I can't still claim that to be the case, but I doubt that was an uncommon motivator for people.

"It also should include the ability to engage in Internet-based education programs, interact with Internet based government services, and participate in online energy, healthcare, and public-safety programs."

What about if those interactive programs are done in Flash? Something that modern broadband and not their shitty definition has trouble with.

the concept "should take the form of a baseline definition of the capabilities needed to support the applications and services Americans must access to participate in the Internet economy—" ... "to learn, train for jobs, and work online." ... "minimal set of applications" includes the ability to use email, instant messaging, and basic Web surfing. "It also should include the ability to engage in Internet-based education programs, interact with Internet based government services, and participate in online energy, healthcare, and public-safety programs."

Interesting. Part of my graduate studies leveraged courses over the web, due to the scheduling flexibility. This required bi-directional high quality voice transmission, transferring large files, streaming video, and a connection fast enough for remote desktop. That doesn't sound like e-mail, IM, and basic websurfing, all of which could easily be covered with dialup.

I really wish somebody at these gov agencies would have the brains or balls to call this kind of BS.

As somebody else pointed out already e-mail and browsing can be done on dial-up. And I am pretty sure that damn near all of the USA and Canada have access to dial-up. Nice try AT&T, what you have just described has been around since the early 90's.

The bottom line is that the network needs of Realtime gaming, (which has pushed the envelope of home network capabilities since dialup and ISDN) are the same ones that are needed by voip, live video, P2P, grid computing, and new services that have not yet been discovered/popularized. AT&T knows this, and they are just hoping that those making the decisions are too ignorant to see what they are doing.

Originally posted by MoistDinosaur:does this mean AT&T wireless phone service could charge you extra for playing games on say an iPhone that are online? So your data plan gets a new feature, gaming added to it?

As soon as AT&T can figure out how to differentiate the traffic, I'm sure they will figure out a way to bill you for it. ("For your shopping convenience.") All the other carriers will do the same, and will happily advertise that their "game support" is better than the others, and cheaper!

What a joke AT&T. Why is email even listed as a requirement for broadband??? Cell phone networks have been doing email for years, no one would call AT&T edge network speeds broadband but it handles everything AT&T calls "requirements for broadband" perfectly fine. I'm surfing the web, commenting, and sending emails from my phone all the time. What I'm not doing is watching hulu, playing games, live video chats, browsing usenet, or remote desktop applications. These are all things I do constantly from my computer, in fact, the chances that I'm ever on my laptop and not doing at least one of the 4 aforementioned activities is effectively nil, so why on earth would broadband not constitute the ability to do those activities?

Isn't AT&T in the middle of a crusade to save its image. Do they think pretending its 1995 is an effective way to improve their image?

Ok, not for nothing, but reading the jump from "[Games] teach cooperation, cultivate leadership skills, and empower users to express their creativity." to "There is little evidence to support the idea that playing video games, in general, is associated with a vibrant civic or political life" threw me off enough to knock me back in my chair a bit.

Since when does cooperation and leadership skills equate to gamers influencing each other on how to vote? And honestly, were any of us expecting an online game room to turn into a conversation on how to bring water to thirsty African kids? Gosh, I hope not. But that doesn't mean games can't teach folks how to think. There's a huge distinction between a method of thinking and topic of thinking. Just because someone isn't using the words charity or politics doesn't mean they're not being taught how to be functional members of society. That study comparison seems incredibly out of place and beside the point the game society was making.

That being said, I'm almost sympathetic with AT&T. Almost. Because, yeah, games are generally viewed as contrary to "useful" tasks. They are leisurely. So you tend to think of them as less imperative than other tasks. My own personal arguments about how leisure is generally viewed inappropriately aside, that's how it is.

However...what happened to the ambition? I mean, I find it hard to believe that all of the telcos are so dang strapped for cash that they lost the ability to aim big. You're not gaining anyone's favor by aiming as low as you possibly can. I mean, I'm not gonna belittle the task of getting super-powerful broadband into the farthest corners of the U.S. We do have on gigantic country, so it's no easy task. But if you're gonna tell me that we can only pull off the bare minimum, I guess the alleged ambitious can-do American attitude is dead.

Ironically, you know what would be perfect to fill the void left by ambition? Video games. :-/

Originally posted by newwb:Yep. Broadband is about the pipe, not what you do over it.

The problem with that argument is that without the things people do over broadband, there's no real reason for broadband. Thus, one can argue that the definition the FCC is looking to create should include something about what drives the desire for broadband - video services, conferencing, games, etc.

ITS JUST FUCKING BITS ON A NETWORK.high bandwidth, low latency. that should be the ONLY consideration of what broad band is...

Should we allow network providers to rate limit based on use, if that use is abusing the capabilities of the network, sure! But in no way should you say "this kind of use of the bits, is different from this use of the bits".

Gah, the idiocy and arrogance of the telecom operators in how the define this shit blows my mind, and it blows my mind that the FCC just laps it up.

"the pressing concern is not the ability to engage in real-time, two-way gaming, but obtaining meaningful access to the Internet’s resources and to reliable email communications and other basic tools that most of the country has come to expect as a given."

" AT&T's "minimal set of applications" includes the ability to use email, instant messaging, and basic Web surfing. "

I read (translation): " we are a bunch of cheap and greedy bastards who want to keep overcharging you for our slow/outdated services and don't want to upgrade our infra-structure to keep up with the demand for higher speeds and bandwidth from our paying users"

Er... Am I missing something here? Broadband = a certain connection speed in my dictionary, however they want to (re)define it nowadays. It has nothing to do with the type of *data* being sent over the Interwebs.

This is only the first step of ISP's to bring content companies to their knees and tax their traffic. Just put Youtube traffic in tier "x", online gaming in tier "y", P2P in tier "z" and charge as much as typical users will pay for each.

In Portugal actual speed was a factor only in the early days of cable. You could have 56kbps (or 112kbps if you used a dual ISDN line)... or a whopping 256kbps with cable. An added advantage was that you had "always on" plans with a fixed charge regardless of the time spent online. Time went by, speed is less and less a factor in the Portuguese market, download caps are all but extinct and competition is fierce.

I can see ISP's over here pulling something like this out of their hats and coming up with "[insert favourite net use here] is hogging our infrastructure and everybody's experience so we'll have to start charging you more for it" arguments.

Someone needs to inform AT&T that until VERY recently, almost every MMO and online game supported DIAL UP as a connection method.

Gaming does not require a significant data load. Updates do, but even basic broadband speeds can suffice as updates typically run in the background or automatically on today's games, and no longer prompt at launch making the user wait hours to download the installers.

What't at issue I believe for AT&T is not even so much connection speed, but data load, knowing that even a single game can have a multi-GB payload as often as once a month or more. Further, online purchases of games can significantly add to this load.

They're also apparently eliminating just about ANY form of streaming video aside from low res flash (sub-HD), since the minimum broadband speeds suggested basically can't accomodate it, though any school child knows that watching video at home is a critical part of a lot of assignemnets.

Anything less than an FCC mandate of 2dn/256up would simply be rediculous. I'd further like to see that speed rating reserved exclusively for sub $19.99 plans (potentially even subsidised for the poor down even further). I'd like to see "basic" home broadband become defined not just by a speed number, but by a metric so that as the quality of content improves and size of files increases the standard will rise such that over the years the same $19.99 plan will continue to be able to fulfil the needs of the user, even if that requires more bandwidth. I'd also like to see a higher tier set at 6-10dn/512-1up called "standard" and similarly raised over time, meeting the needs of a typical family of 4.5 people including real-time streaming of TV priced at $39.99 or less.

Also, and definition of broadband that does not include SLAs is pointless. Further specific rules on throttling need to be made firm. Finally, The difference between "provisioned" and "acheivable" bandwidth needs to be defined, with the advertised rate ALWAYS being the acheivable number and the metric of how often and for how long that's acheivable be part of the SLA.

This is kind of scary, I would hate to think that broadband is defined by what applications use it as opposed to the speed and latency required by those application.

I think it's reasonable to use applications as a means to an end, the end being speed and latency of the connection. But not an End in them selves. We can define every application currently available in the world, but what happens when a new application comes about, one we couldn't have thought of currently?

Like I said it's scary to think that broadband could potentially be defined by applications and not speeds. If it is then it's safe to say the telcos are getting what they want, regardless of speed. Hello ala-cart internet!! "Sir, would you like Porn with your sports package?"

The problem with setting a hard number is that the requirements change every year. I remember when a 1Mb connection meant you were in bandwidth heaven, and probably a company instead of a normal consumer. That was not so long ago either. Today though, even 5Mb is nothing special.

I have 10 coming to my house and am looking at getting the upgrade to 20 since it's not that much more and I do a lot of work from the house that I need to access when out on a side job, and I don't want to take forever to download something from home while I am out. Then there are the following facts about our household net usage:My wife and I both work in ITShe is back in school for a whileWe have one child left in the house that is also in collegeWe use VoIP for home phone use (Vonage and 2 Magic Jacks - great for travel and occasional extra line)Everyone in the house does online gaming from WoW to hosting Unreal Tournament matchesStreaming VideoStreaming RadioA SlingboxVarious Web, game, and FTP serversUsenetP2P stuffAnd the usual email, IM, web surfing, and such.So, 5Mb may fit the bill for the average user's definition of broadband today, but in a couple years the general requirements will be greater. The application based version sucks too though.

I think the best bet would be to get over the idea of defining broadband and just classify the connections in levels 1-10 and say you have to have a certain percentage of the populace at level 6 as the average user access, and all but say 10% at least able to get a level 3. The are just arbitrary numbers, but you get the idea. Then the requirements for each level of service get updated every year based on what the general public is doing on a daily basis and the technology available at the time.

The very first thing I did with my broadband (after verifying the speed that I paid for) was to connect to Second Life.

In some senses Second Life is considered an online game, in other senses not. I specialize there in organizing online equivalents to match real-world events (geographically distributed memorials, etc) so people that are unable to get to them locally are able to get to one online.

If something like that is considered "frivolous" it would pretty much defeat the whole point of the online versions of those events.

Originally posted by backtomac:So ATT thinks that email access =broadband?

You've obviously never used their 3g wireless service...

But seriously, this is one of those "slippery slope" deals. Lets say that "gaming" isn't covered by net neutrality to that we can charge to let you play World of Warcraft better (that's essentially what their talking about I think). Now lets define gaming to include anything with a "streaming" component. Now youtube = gaming. Now lets define streaming as "anything that maintains a connection for longer than 30s". Congrats, you can now check your email on your "broadband" connection (no attachments), if you want to do anything else you need to subscribe to our ultra mega splendificocktacular package (for the low low price of all the money you will ever make).

They just want to tier their services as much as possible so that they can nickle and dime their customers, all while calling it "value added serivces", and claiming that it's better for the customer.

Since when does it matter WHAT you use your connection for, as to that you're using it? I mean, when I signed up for my broadband connection, there wasn't a questionnaire that asked what I would be using it for.

Actually, more to the point, if I'm being sold a service where I should be able to get 3 Mb/s, then I would say it's safe to assume that even though I might not get exactly 3 MB/s, that I should be able to have that throughput be continuous. If not, then what is being sold is being sold with false advertising. If you are selling a service, and you have restrictions on that service, then you need to advertise it as "This service is limited by: x, y, and z" not "Get 3 Mb/s!". If you sell someone a service that allows them to connect at 3 Mb/s for all of their "computing needs", how do you then get to turn around and say what it would be used for?

What this all comes down to is this: Say that AT&T has the ability to have 30 concurrent connections at one time for a specific part of the grid. Now, business has been good, so they have 45 people signed up for that grid. Instead of doing the right thing, ie, upgrading the grid to allow 45 people, they limit those 45 people to 2/3 of the advertised bandwidth, since nobody would be able to do know, exactly, that it was happening. So, you don't get reduced connections because of network variables, like switches being busy, etc, but because they are intentionally reducing the amount of throughput each person has so that they can get more people connected at the same time without upgrading equipment to account for it. Their profit is what drives their decisions, not ethics and definitely not any sense of customer loyalty...

To everyone saying that broadband should be defined in numbers and not services. Shut Up.

Have you ever heard of a thing called "inflation"? It is not confined to economics. It can be applied to any numbered system that changes a minimum value.

When dialup first came out it was 28k. Then companies started advertising 56k speeds claiming it was better. Should we base the minimum off of those numbers now? No. The reason is the minimum has now been raised. If we set the minimum down speed to 5 Mbps what happens in 5 years when the services we use today now have more overhead bandwidth needs than currently exist and your services are crawling?

Hard numbers are bad because of inflation. By defining broadband in terms of services it provides, it will allow for inflation and as common services require more bandwidth as time moves on, the ISP will have to upgrade.

With AT&T trying to define broadband in terms of services that are available and fully usable on dialup speeds, they are trying to lower the bar so that they don't have to upgrade in any realistic time frame.

Gaming is a great way to test the broadband definition. Gaming gets more complex as each generation arrives. We will be passing more information through games every year and if the broadband we have now cannot support the features of gaming in 5 years, we will be exactly where we are now.

This is *EXACTLY* what net neutrality is all about. AT&T is (or should be) a CARRIER, and only a carrier. Deciding what kind of traffic it carriers is exactly equivalent to the phone company telling you what you are allowed to talk about during a phone call.

AT&T, and any broadband carrier, should be responsible for moving IP packets from A to B .. nothing more, nothing less. Poking around inside those packets and deciding which ones they will allow is an obnoxious idea.

So why do it? Because they want to charge more money to move certain types of packets around. Imagine it for phone service: "Sorry sir, you are discussing politics on the phone, but you have only subscribed to our basic service, and you can only talk about the weather and your family." Basically that's what AT&T is asking for in their control of broadband.

.. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I just was thinking back to the distant past. You actually make a very good point.

quote:

Originally posted by Ars of Ares:So do they want to get rid of us as customers? Or have they figured out a way to charge us more and they're waiting for the FCC to rule in their favor?

Actually, this is all about defining the minimum. This isn't about trying to hobble you, its about not being forced to provide service to extreme rural areas or other places where it's not "cost-effective".

This is crazy. Broadband is a technology used to access the Internet just like DSL or dialup. Gaming email or web browsing is an activity one uses their internet service for whether it's broadband, DSL, or dialup. The activity does not define the access method.

"This did not sit well with Kenneth L. Doroshow, Senior Vice President of the Entertainment Software Association. "What AT&T describes as aspirational services are no less important to the future of the Internet than email and web browsing were to the past and are today," he told the Commission on Wednesday."

Well, of course it doesn't sit well. Basically; the more broadband the more game sales, thus the more profit.

Although I think AT&T are basically crooks for taking all that money years ago and not delivering on their promise for the 'broadband super-highway' they promised - I have to agree with their point here.

"They're used for employee training and in schools, he noted. "Online video games are a meaningful part of our participative culture. They remove geographic barriers, connecting people from across the country and around the world. They teach cooperation, cultivate leadership skills, and empower users to express their creativity."

I've never seen CounterStrike or any other FPS game used for training employees to do their job (unless their job is desiging video games) or in schools used as a teaching tool or method (unless they are teaching game design). It seems to me that a company training employees or a school system that would want to use games to do so would be able to either aford a suitable broadband connection in most cases. Maybe there are exceptions, but it seems to me that if a person can aford a $50.00 to $60.00 video game that they can aford a basic broadband connection to use for playing it on line. I don't want my tax dollars to go for paying for someone to get a broaband connection just for gaming. If they can't aford the game then they won't be playing it anyway.

Online video games are a meaningful part of our participative culture...uhhh...how so? Maybe in the sense that they allow people to get together in the same place and play the same thing, but its a culture all to its own and implying its an ingrained part of everyones culture here is a little off track.

They remove geographic barriers, connecting people from across the country and around the world...hmmm, well yes, maybe. They allow others to get together to call each other "cheaters" and curse at one another, or share a few laughs, but is that really removing a geographic barrier or just something for someone to do for a little while?

They teach cooperation, cultivate leadership skills, and empower users to express their creativity...uhhhhh...has this guy ever heard of CounterStrike?

Originally posted by E. Zachary Knight:To everyone saying that broadband should be defined in numbers and not services. Shut Up.

The road to your house - is it a two-lane residential road approximately 500 yards long built to a capacity of 500 vehicles (<1/2 ton) per day?

Or is it a road used by teenagers to get to school (defined as either personal or commuter transit, with varying needs for each), used by business[wo]men to get to and from work, used by housewives(-husbands) to get to and from soccer practice and the grocery story, used by robbers to transport goods, and built to whatever capacity is the bare minimum to support those activities (ie - no walking! and no going to gymanstics class!) alone?

Originally posted by E. Zachary Knight:To everyone saying that broadband should be defined in numbers and not services. Shut Up.

Have you ever heard of a thing called "inflation"? It is not confined to economics. It can be applied to any numbered system that changes a minimum value.

When dialup first came out it was 28k. Then companies started advertising 56k speeds claiming it was better. Should we base the minimum off of those numbers now? No. The reason is the minimum has now been raised. If we set the minimum down speed to 5 Mbps what happens in 5 years when the services we use today now have more overhead bandwidth needs than currently exist and your services are crawling?

Hard numbers are bad because of inflation. By defining broadband in terms of services it provides, it will allow for inflation and as common services require more bandwidth as time moves on, the ISP will have to upgrade.

With AT&T trying to define broadband in terms of services that are available and fully usable on dialup speeds, they are trying to lower the bar so that they don't have to upgrade in any realistic time frame.

Gaming is a great way to test the broadband definition. Gaming gets more complex as each generation arrives. We will be passing more information through games every year and if the broadband we have now cannot support the features of gaming in 5 years, we will be exactly where we are now.

That's why we should have a roadmap to increase the definition of broadband every 2-3 years. Defining it by applications allows ISPs to actively throttle things they want people to pay extra for without good reason. I think $40/month I'm paying now should be enough for me to watch Youtube, or play World of Goo, thank you.

Headline: "AT&T continues to try to define dial-up service as broadband"Subhead: "Will this mean they will start charging your Grandma $60/month to email?"

Body: AT&T is saying some wacky stuff in the "Define Broadband" debate. Let's all pray that those at the FCC have enough cumulative brain cells to not buy this bullshit.

Bill Z. Bubb, AT&T's Head of Corporate Communications, responded to the FCC's call for a definition of broadband: "All we're saying is that e-mail and basic web-surfing are broadband, and that anything else would be unprofita--, ahem, unrealistic to roll out to everyone in the US. I mean, there's that one guy in Alaska who lives in a bus, how are we going to get DSL up there? Anything above the basics is added-value services beyond broadband." In response to a question about what specifically should be included in "added-value services," he continued: "Real-Time High Definition Video Chats, interactive media presentations, online gaming, video streaming, VoIP, Uploading or Downloading massive amounts of media, Flash-Based games, Pictures, non-standard fonts or formats, MUDs, ASCII pictures, you get the idea."

Ego Centric, a level 80 merman druid and spokesman for All Time Top Students, Trolls, Enterprise, and Homemaker Gamers Against Your Evil Stupid Telco (A.T.T.S. T.E.H. G.A.Y.E.S.T.), responded by saying that games are responsible for socializing people and preparing them for careers as gold farmers, Somali Pirates or Uber-Leet Snipers. "These games teach people how to socialize with people they never meet in... just a second... In a minute, MOM! Goddammit, I'm interviewing with a magazine. Goddammit... Anyway, it allows people to be more socially adjusted and normal."

Penni Syl Poosher, a representative for the FCC, thought that both sides missed the point of the FCC inquiry. "Honestly we asked for a definition of 'broadband' because we have no freaking clue. [Former Alaska Senator] Ted Stevens said something about it being a truck stuck in a tube and [Former Vice President] Al Gore said he invented it, but we really don't know what the hell it is, much less how to regulate it. We have maybe 4 guys who understand the whole internet thing, but they can't really explain it to the rest of us. They only got as far as helping us put up our MyFace pages before we got confused and turned the cursed machine off. Now get off my lawn!"

As always, reasonable users of the internet have been seen checking job postings in one of the 50 or so countries that have better internet connections for cheaper than the US. [end body]

Originally posted by Pit Spawn:Broadband should absolutely not be defined by application use. That would be the first step to doing away with net neutrality.

Federal law and the FCC described Broadband as more than 768Kbps up and 128kbps down back in the 1990's!!! These comments by AT&T should be stricken from the record as irrelevant.

Google is dead on, that Broadband is an engineering specification. It's a number of bits per second, latency, and an SLA... just like POTS.

The whole idea of "net neutrality" comes from the old POTS rules. Telcos could not restrict a "phone call"... a call was a call whether it was to your grandma, to buy things, to fax, or for dial-up. All were billed the same way.

people in the country need ALL their POTS lines updated to a minimum of 768Mbp down/ 256Mbps up for a reasonable monthly fee. That should be the goal of any stimulus offered at this point.

In fact the idea of a separate phone should be phased out and switched to dedicated IP addresses... right along with the switch to IPv6 give every house an IP address and let NAT handle phone/internet/tv services. Basic homes would do this at the "little grey box" and connect a normal phone so nobody would notice the change. Maybe add UPS or Power over Ethernet in the same limited fashion as the telco operates now.